The passage closed behind them with a dull thud, like a book shut too quickly.
Marikka bent over, her hands on her knees. The mark on her wrist no longer burned: it pulsed, slow and irregular, as if trying to remind her it was still there. Every vibration from the place reached her muffled, distant. She hadn't fainted. She was... delayed compared to the world.
Cedric crouched beside her. "Hey. Breathe. One version only. Here. Now."
She nodded, inhaling deeply. The corridor in front of them resembled none they had crossed before. The walls were smooth, but not clean: signs of old seals, scraped-off inscriptions, runes reduced to scars.
Aurelian observed the space with growing attention. "We are no longer in the Intermediate Halls."
"Great," Cedric said. "Because they seemed hostile enough already."
"This is an upper transition zone," Aurelian continued. "Only two types of things pass through here: urgent procedures... and what shouldn't reach the surface."
Marikka looked up.
At the end of the corridor was a door.
Not monumental. Not protected by dozens of seals. It was a simple threshold of light stone, with a single inscription in the center: an incomplete rune, as if it had been interrupted mid-gesture.
The vibration it emanated was not threatening.
It was tired.
"That is..." Cedric began.
"The Last Minor Door," Aurelian concluded. "A residual connection. Unofficial."
Marikka felt something stir under her skin. Not the mark. Something subtler. The door perceived her.
"Why does it still exist?" she asked.
Aurelian hesitated. "Because no system completely eliminates escape routes. It hides them."
A deep sound crossed the corridor.
Not footsteps.
Not bells.
A liquid scraping, like overly thick ink being dragged against resistance.
Cedric spun around. "Please, tell me it's not—"
Marikka felt it arrive before seeing it.
The Alpha Ink Predator emerged from the shadow like a stain that had decided to take shape. It wasn't large, but it was concentrated. Every part of its body seemed designed to absorb, not to strike. The surfaces poorly reflected light, as if digesting it.
It had no eyes.
It had direction.
"Guardian," Aurelian whispered. "It was left here to prevent the door's use."
The Predator advanced. The floor beneath it didn't break: it simplified, as if the world was giving up details to let it pass.
Aurelian traced a containment rune.
The Predator did not react.
A second rune. Then a third.
Nothing.
"It doesn't recognize the protocols," Aurelian said, and now there was something worse than fear in his voice. "It's... prior."
Cedric backed up until he almost touched the door. "Marikka? Ideas? Brilliant ideas? Even just mediocre ones?"
Marikka tried to perceive the creature. The vibration she received was not hostile. It was hungry for function. The Predator did not want to destroy them. It wanted to absorb them as a deviation.
"I can't stabilize it," she said, with difficulty. "It's already... too coherent."
The Predator accelerated.
Aurelian swore. Then he did something he had never done in front of them.
He broke a seal.
Not just any one. A seal inscribed directly on his forearm, hidden under layers of containment runes. When he broke it, a dark light ran across his arm like a living fracture.
"Aurelian—" Marikka began.
"Don't look," he growled. "And don't ask me to do it again."
The forbidden seal activated.
It did not hit the Predator.
It hit the door.
The incomplete rune in the center of the threshold lit up, completing itself for an instant. The Minor Door responded.
The Predator screamed.
Not with sound, but with loss of form. Parts of its body liquefied, drawn to the threshold like ink to blotting paper.
Aurelian collapsed to his knees. The seal on his arm smoked, as if something was trying to close itself from the inside.
"Now!" Cedric shouted.
Marikka grabbed Aurelian under the armpits and dragged him toward the door. The Predator attempted one last alignment, but the threshold was already open.
When they crossed it, Marikka felt a new vibration.
Not of the Athenaeum.
Air.
Natural light filtered from the other side, dirty, imperfect, real. They weren't outside, not completely—but enough to feel that the world didn't vibrate in orderly lines.
Behind them, the Minor Door closed.
The Predator remained on the other side.
For now.
Cedric dropped to the ground, laughing and shaking at the same time. "Okay. Okay. Real air exists. I can confirm it."
Marikka knelt beside Aurelian. His breathing was ragged, his arm marked by black lines that were no longer runes.
"What did you do?" she whispered.
Aurelian opened his eyes with difficulty. "I attracted... attention."
As if to confirm his words, Marikka sensed something different. Not hostile. Not protective.
Curious.
Someone—or something—had detected the use of the Minor Door.
Not from the Order.
Not from the Athenaeum.
From outside.
And for the first time, Marikka understood that the outside world was not a refuge.
It was just another system ready to react.